Intense! Like camping!

Hello once again. Eli here, and like a politician up for reelection, I’m  making my appearance know so you don’t forget I exist.  I usually only write when I have a tale that is worth telling, and I feel that I have a couple of great tales for you today.  They are tales of camping and adventure, high adventure.  No, not high in the hippy Bozeman sense, we didn’t smoke weed the whole time. (I actually knew a guy that sprayed weeds for the county, and for his job description he said that he just drove around and smoked weed all day yeah funny huh, ok anyway)  I went with the teachers and priests on a high adventure canoe trip last weekend for three days, and the following weekend we (the young men’s presidency) were in charge of the ward campout.  We had to plan both activities and I looked forward to the first one and on the other hand, how can I say it?  I looked forward to planning the ward campout about as much as I look forward to pooping in one of those forest service kybos.  So if you have ever wondered if spaghetti was a feasible meal for camping, or the maximum number of times a canoe can be swamped, or if packaging tape will repair a hole in a canoe, or if there is a possible way to identify a tree by feeling its roots in your butt, or how fast a person can go from feeling fine to violently hurling his guts out, stay tuned, your answers are on the way.

                Let’s start in the very beginning and please don’t start singing that song (you know the one I’m talking about and you know you’re doing it).  It all began Thursday August 2^nd.  We left Bozeman at around 6 o’clock destined for Livingston and the Yellowstone River.  If you’re not familiar with the scout life you should know that we do things by our wits, we brave the elements with chins held high we face adversity with strong resolve living off of the land.  Keeping that in mind, you can understand how upset I was when I found out that the restaurant where we ate didn’t have any fry sauce, but under said resolve, I conquered and I am stronger for it.  We had 5 boys with us and including me there was four leaders at least at first there was.  After we ate we drove south through paradise valley and found a small camp site to sleep that night before we put in the river.  Here is the first picture I have.  It is of Caleb, one of our teachers, he wanted me to get a shot of the clouds in the background so everyone could understand the peril we were in.  This goes back to the scouting resolve.  Also featured in this picture is Finn, apparently doing his best impersonation of a tree.

 And here we have Finn, bedding down for the night on top of one of the canoes while still on the trailer.  I know it sounds pretty comfortable, I’m thinking of getting myself one.

So after we all talked for a long time as we do while camping Abe Antonucci, the first counselor, got in his tent and I joined the secretary Chet Heap in his tent.  Just as we were lying down, I heard this faint sound in the distance.  It sounded like someone was coughing in one of the other campsites.  It steadily grew louder and I realized it was coming from someone right outside of the tent, and I also realized that it was more than coughing.  Now I don’t want to go into too much detail….but I will anyway.  He was violently throwing up, how else can I say it?  Barfing, hurling, praying to the porcelain god (or in this case the ditch bank deity yeah I just made that up), ralphing, up chucking, blowing chuncks, speeeeewing.  I got more but I will spare you.  Not only could I hear the puking, I could hear it all hit the grassy bank like someone was ladling soup out of a bowl.  Chet and I both sat up and gave each other the look.  You know, the “oh crap someone is throwing up and I’m glad it’s not me but does that mean I am going to get sick next?” look.  We ended up taking him home.  So from then on we lost our meal planner.  He bought all the ingredients for our meals and we just had to figure it out.  We ended up eating pepperoni wraps for lunch the next day, spaghetti for dinner, and oatmeal and bagels for breakfast the next day.  It was a weird meal but he is Italian I guess.  Using our best Italian accents we would say “Ah, the Antonnuci a family loves to cooka the spaghetti for the camping”. The hardest part was eating oatmeal for breakfast while camping.  I think Chet said it best when he first heard what we were having.  He looked around at everyone with that “really” look on his face and said “well I don’t know about anyone else but I’m going to get up early and kill me a pancake or two.”  If only we could have. 

Well we hit the water and fished and laughed and acted like scouts.  I really love my calling because my maturity level is right there with the scouts.  Same with Chet, so we had a great time.  The second day out we decided to take turns swimming along side of the canoe while our partner stayed in.  One of the scouts while alone in the canoe with a small hole in it and the cooler with all the food, started to panic and ended up swamping the canoe.  In a panic we scrambled and got everything together again but what was done was done.  The same canoe and scout ended up swamping it three times that day.  The hole got worse and we had to have both scouts sit in the opposite end of the canoe to keep the hole out of the water.  With the huge cooler in that end I called it “the Hurse”.  Me and Chet took a turn in it and since he had on a tie died shirt, they said we looked gay.  Yes, we are politically correct.  Here are some pictures of the swamp.  The words “some poor fainting struggling seaman you may rescue, you may save” came to mind.  But that didn’t stop me from laughing and taking pictures. 

The after math of the first swamp.  I think that sleeping bag weighed 60 lbs.

 Here is the second swamp, they were thrilled that I was taking pictures, not!

 Now they are dumping out the water and you can see Chet's tie dyed shirt.

 Here is the crew.  Caleb and his dad in the only good canoe.

 Brandon and Finn

And finally kelly and Ty in the Hurse.  Don't they look like they are carrying a noble warrior off to the burial ground.

Of course I didn't take any pictures of myself.  Caleb's dad did actually and he texted it to me and like an idiot I deleted it later.  So I'll try and get it again.

Now on to the ward campout.  Like I said, I was not looking forward to this but it went ok?  I think.  Well no, no it didn’t.  We got rained on all night long.  A lot of people came up for the meal that night and left to go home and sleep in their warm soft beds, a nice air conditioner blowing in the background.  As you can imagine that is what I kept thinking about as I lay there trying to fall asleep in vain.  The meal was pulled pork sandwiches we had made from bar three barbeque.  It turned out really good.  Then we made smores in the small wood burning stove in the barn that was on the camp site.  I really enjoyed talking and I think everyone really enjoyed themselves.  Then came the night……….and what a night it was.  We still have the same tent that we got when we first got married, a little two man dome tent.  But we figured that since both Axel and Grady only add up to be a half a man that we could still fit.  We got them in their sleeping bags and stuffed them in each corner opposite each other and they were out within 15 minutes.  Now me and Velvet on the other hand.  You know when you get a really good idea but it comes to late and that is all you can think about, for example the idea that you should make sure there are no rocks or tree roots waiting at the bottom of your tent.  Of course this is just hypothetical.  I had a jim dandy of a tree root right in my butt cheek.  It was about halfway through the night that I told Velvet this could be a specific discipline of science.  I gave her an example “From the impression this root is leaving in my cheek, I’m going to say it is a cotton wood or a willow…..definitely a Salix genus.  Now you feel how it starts out smoother at the base and becomes increasingly rough as one moves upwards, that indicates water logging….. Oh, and you feel that knot!  Well all I’m going to say is that the drought of 96 wasn’t good to this fellow!”  Anyway, I don’t think that I slept a wink all night cause even after I managed to work my way into a bearable position and all those years of playing twister finally paid off, then came the sound “PIT.”  “What was that”, I thought as I awoke with a start, “That was…NO it couldn’t be that would be too much, it it was just my imagination, yeah that’s all.”  Then again “Pit pat”  “Noooooooooooooooo!”   “pit-pat pit-pat, drip drip drop little april showers Eli is going to go out of his mind!”  Yeah it rained all night long.  So to make a long story short (too late) I ended up getting up at about 5:30 and getting everything ready for breakfast.  I think I turned it into one of those prison lines.  Just get your food, get your kids and get out so I can go home.  Yeah, hopefully next year they’ll put me in charge of something else. Anyway I think I have taken up enough of your time if you made it this far it means you have nothing else better to do or you are still waiting for me to get to the good part.  In either case I am sorry.  So until the next adventure I bid you adue.